RE: [patch]:MC/MT enabling/identification for IA-64

[David Mosberger <davidm@napali.hpl.hp.com>]

>>>>> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:24:40 -0800, "Seth, Rohit" <rohit.seth@intel.com> said:

  Rohit> I agree that the format of these fields should match the
  Rohit> format of other fields in cpuinfo.....though it will be nice
  Rohit> if we have the same format as that of i386 cpuinfo output.

I'm not sure there is much point to that:

 (a) The contents of /proc/cpuinfo is by definition architecture-specific

 (b) Applications _should_ allow any whitespace when parsing
     /proc/cpuinfo, so in properly-written applications, it shouldn't
     matter whether whitespace or tabs are used.

Changing the formatting of /proc/cpuinfo only runs the risk of
existing tools, without benefit to properly written applications.

  Rohit> I was thinking of this information as something that apps can
  Rohit> use to find the information about which logical execution
  Rohit> units (leu) are threads on the same core, which leu are on
  Rohit> the same package and so on.  This is similar to i386(HT
  Rohit> enabled processors) where siblings gives the number of
  Rohit> threads on the same package.

I'm not a fan of including redudant info in /proc files.

  Rohit> Typically the field names in various PAL call related data
  Rohit> structures match their definition in SDM....

I don't think we need to constrain ourselves too much to what the PAL
names are.  That code is part of the kernel and it should be readable.

	--david